False Albacore: A Comprehensive Guide to Fly Fishing's Hottest Fish

Rating:
Summary: Save your money and invest in Crease Flies!
Review: Although Albies have gotten little space in other more general Northeast Fishing Classics, like Inshore Fly Fishing and Fly Rodding the Coast, I'm not sure that we have enough information about our quarry for an entire book dedicated to the hottest long rod gamefish. I would have said the same about Dick Brown's Fly Fishing for Bonefish and Lou Tabory's Stripers on the Fly, but they were much more comprehensive and the techniques have been develped for many years. Fishing for Albies is a very new game. The Deceiver was on a postage stamp before people started targeting Albies with a long rod.

If you've caught one Albie, most of this book won't be that helpful. Most of Gilmore's insights are anecdotal, based solely on his experience and guide interviews, but it's not his fault. What scientist would be interested in studying a "trash" fish? The locale guide and guide directory will save you a lot of research time. One thing to note is that Montauk and Harkers are great Albie fisheries, but on a weekends are a mess with boats everywhere. You can easily hook someone in another boat with your back cast.

I'd also would have loved to see more photos of smiling anglers with a fish. I look forward to the second edition with more substance. Despite the it's flaws, this book will probably become a classic.

Rating:
Summary: Bent rods and screaming reels!
Review: For Many years Tom Gilmore has been a well respected authority on chasing and landing Northeast species on a flyrod. His
public seminars for fishing clubs throughout the east often pack a full house to Enlightened Longrodders.

His Knowledge and Practical Expierience come through in this well researched book, making this comprehensive guide perfectly clear to fishermen of all skill levels who read it.

This book was extremely helpful offering all pertinent information from tackle to seasonal Hotspots. If you are not yet an Albie angler read this book and you'll soon be!

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Summary: Reel-Time's Review of "False Albacore"
Review: Tom Gilmore has caught the essence of angling for these inedible rocket-fish in his well-crafted book on the species, False Albacore , devoting more than 200 pages to a fishery that has emerged as the top Atlantic coast challenge. Fast, powerful, and maddening to catch, false albacore represent an addiction that surpasses the romance of the striped bass, the bulldoggedness of the bluefish, or the tropical hunt of the bonefish with its manic habits, its pulse quickening attacks, and its well-deserved reputation for trashing gear and making otherwise sane fishermen somewhat nutty.

Gilmore, who is president and CEO of the New Jersey Audubon Society, is a good writer who gets right down to business, and wastes little time in delving into the details of what tackle, flies, and technique is needed to nail an albie on the fly rod. While the book assumes some fly fishing experience, and doesn't attempt to teach too many basics, it is a perfect starting point for a beginning and intermediate saltwater angler looking to diversify his or her catch list from the usual stripers and blues to something with an exotic punch.

The book is well illustrated, includes an excellent set of color photographs of top fly patterns as tied by their originators, and is divided between a comprehensive how-to section in the first-halt and a guide to false albacore hot spots from Massachusetts to Florida. Gilmore interviewed more than 50 guides and other experts in researching False Albacore , collecting the kind of hard won experience from a broad group that yields some nuggets and tricks that even the most experienced false albacore angler can appreciate.

Having a bit of a false albacore "problem" myself, and having devoted far too many hours and tanks of gas in pursuit of the fish, I consider myself a capable, if not experienced fisherman when it comes to albies. Yet on multiple occasions throughout the book I found myself taking note of some insights that while intuitively I may have picked up on the water, I had never really consciously considered until reading Gilmore.

As any one can attest, finding then casting, and finally hooking and landing a false albacore can seem like an extremely daunting prospect at first. Gilmore cuts away at a lot of the uncertainty by emphasizing tide, structure, the prevalent baitfish, small patterns over large, slow sinking lines over floaters (in most circumstances), blind casting, and preparation. With the added bonus of some specific directions to some well-known albacore spots, this is an essential book for someone setting out to find a tiny tuna for the first time.

David Churbuck, Reel-Time: The Internet Journal of Saltwater Fly Fishing